What are the people of Ukraine really fighting for?

The war in Ukraine shows the limits of nationalism

Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock)

Who's winning in Ukraine? I'm not asking about soldiers on the front lines or the civilians caught between them. Although we're flooded with reports, assertions, and assessments, it's desperately hard to assess the real state of the battle or to predict its outcome. Before the invasion began, U.S. officials expected Kyiv to fall within days — a goal that Russian forces still have not achieved a month later.

Instead, I mean the battle among us keyboard warriors to determine what it all means. In the absence of reliable information, it's tempting to appeal to broad frameworks and sweeping rhetoric. Many of us work on deadline, after all. And even those who don't need to say something in order to keep a hand in the game.

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Samuel Goldman

Samuel Goldman is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also an associate professor of political science at George Washington University, where he is executive director of the John L. Loeb, Jr. Institute for Religious Freedom and director of the Politics & Values Program. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard and was a postdoctoral fellow in Religion, Ethics, & Politics at Princeton University. His books include God's Country: Christian Zionism in America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) and After Nationalism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021). In addition to academic research, Goldman's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.